


diagnosis

by orphan_account



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anxiety, Bullying, Depression, Happy ending though, M/M, Mental Illnesses, Oops, Social Anxiety, Suicide Attempt, caring tyler, it's another sad one guys, jock!tyler, mute!josh, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 13:28:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7716508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh is so much more than his diagnosis. He just needs to be taught that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	diagnosis

**Author's Note:**

> READ THE TAGS FOR TRIGGERS AND STAY SAFE ILY  
> i have selective mutism too and there's no representation of that really so time to write about it  
> I had a plan for this fic and i completely changed it as i wrote like literally this is not what i had planned (forest ref whaddup) at all it's a mess i have repressed emotions  
> hope you enjoy xx

When Josh was young he would sometimes stop talking. One minute he could be talking perfectly and the next he would be completely silent, lips zipped and the key thrown away. He often would go days, once or twice even weeks, without speaking. But otherwise. He spoke perfectly. No issue. His parents took him to the doctor’s at the age of 5 after he went 6 weeks without speaking. They had ignored his habit before because they thought he was simply acting up. It was only when he had a panic attack in his school hallway and the teacher called parents that they realised there was something wrong. 

Josh Dun was diagnosed with selective mutism at the age of 5.

He was severely bullied after that. No one really likes the freak who can’t speak half of the time. At first nothing physical happened, it was just pure teasing but eventually people started to hit Josh, to pick him and punch him until he was bruised and bloody, until every ounce of his self-worth had been beat out of him.

Josh Dun was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and generalised anxiety disorder at the age of 10.

This wasn’t really a surprise to anyone. Josh had been having panic attacks for years before this, had randomly been going mute around people he didn’t know. It wasn’t like he was getting news. No one really made a deal of it. No medications were introduced. The therapist, a kind woman with deep set eyes and strawberry blonde hair, said that she didn’t think it would help Josh at this stage. Josh understood. He was a lost cause.

Josh Dun was diagnosed with major depressive disorder at the age of 14.

This was no surprise to Josh yet again but his parents were a little shocked to say the least. Despite everything Josh went through, he always seemed content to them. Honestly, Josh though that was stupid. He’d been bullied since he was five years old. He sent a good portion of his life too anxious to speak. What had they expected? 

High school was torture for Josh. Turns out the older he and his peers got, the meaner they got. It didn’t even make sense. So what he couldn’t always speak? At least he wasn’t spouting the same bullshit as the jocks (A/N I wrote cocks here by accident that is all) were constantly. It wasn’t until a new student, another jock, arrived at school that things started to change, as cliché as it fucking was.

Josh was receiving a particularly bad beating, an apparent “gift” for making it 8 weeks without saying a word, from two football players, with stupidly basic haircuts and names. They were in the school hallways because the teachers in this school honestly didn’t care about the bullying that went on in the dull, packed hallways and every other student wanted to hurt Josh the same way anyway. His vision actually started to fade before he heard a voice telling the jocks, who now had bruises on their fists and Josh blood on their shoes, to lay off him. Then he blacked out.

 

It was an hour before Josh came to, waking up to see a blurry face and basketball jersey. On instinct, Josh scrambled away from the figure, his breath coming short and laboured. He was having a panic attack. It took another 5 minutes for him to calm down, which was a record time, thanks to the help of the nameless jock in front him. Once he was calmed down fully, Josh turned to the other boy, who Jo0sh recognised as the new kid, in time to hear him introduce himself.

“I’m Tyler, it’s nice to meet you,” the boy, Tyler, said in a surprisingly high voice.

‘Josh, my name’s Josh,’ the younger one signed shakily, hoping the other could understand. He looked at Tyler and was met with the softest, warmest smile he’d ever seen and a look of understanding that told Josh that he knew what he was saying. He hoped he saw more of Tyler in the future. He could really get used to that smile. He wanted to get used to it.

 

///////////////////////////

 

They’d been dating for 5 months before the question came. 

“Joshie, why don’t you talk very often?” Tyler whispered into his ear from behind him. They had been cuddling and Josh had been talking happily about drums and the beach and his favourite shade of blue. And then he wasn’t. The minute the question came Josh’s voice cut off. His body tensed completely and Tyler felt it.

“I didn’t mean it like th-that, J. Please, I’m sorry I was just curious, you don’t have to say I was just wondering please don’t shut down on me.” There was desperation clear in Tyler’s voice, as though he were terrified that if he didn’t fix this Josh would never talk again.

And while Josh wanted to be mad at him because, honestly, who just asks why you don’t talk like that, what the fuck, He couldn’t be. Because he realised how fucking unfair it was to keep this from Tyler, to make him have to translate ASL on the daily with no explanation from Josh at all. So he gt a pen and paper and wrote it all out. He explained his selective mutism, his anxiety, his depression. He explained the bullying and the torment and his self-hatred. He wrote out all his feelings for Tyler. Made himself vulnerable for Tyler.

And he was terrified.

The younger boy teared up not even three sentences into Josh’s note and was sobbing by the end of it. He immediately pulled Josh in for a desperate, love filled kiss as though he were afraid that the other boy would disappear if he didn’t do that right there and then. 

“I love you, Josh.”

‘I love you too,’ Josh signed back.

 

///////////////////////////////////////////

 

Josh woke up in the hospital four days after attempting suicide. Tyler was the only one in the room, looking fucking exhausted and more than a little worried. As soon as he saw that Josh had opened his eyes he left the room, coming back not even five minutes later with none other than Josh’s therapist.

Suicidal. That one came as a surprise to Josh. Not once, even in the act of swallowing all those pills, did Josh think of himself as suicidal. Yet here they were.

Yet another diagnosis for Josh.

He must have said that allowed unwillingly because Tyler immediately came over to Josh’s side.

“Listen to me, Josh. Really listen. You are so much fucking more than your diagnosis’. You are more than any of that. You’re smart and kind and beautiful. You’re funny and the most caring, amazing guy I’ve ever met. You’re perfect. You’re Josh. You are more than a list of symptoms. More than a mix of disorders. More than what you’re diagnosed as. Please, never forget that, J. I love you too much to lose you to that like I nearly did this week again, okay?” Tyler never dropped his stare from Josh’s.  
“I love you, Josh.”

‘I love you, Ty,’ Josh said back in ASL. ‘I’m going to get better for you, for us. I love you so much.’

 

Josh was so much more than his mental illnesses. It just took Tyler to make him see that.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading that complete load of shit xxx comments and kudos are always appreciated  
> yell @ me on tumblr @heavy-dirty-jish  
> honestly i hate this one but i want to post and it took me a while to write so im posting it anyway  
> my music taste is so fucking indie rockish i need to stop this


End file.
